10/4/01

Jonnelle Davis of North Carolina's Chapel Hill News
reports on a proposal to allow recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance
among elementary school students in one public school, October 3, 2001:

McDougle Elementary PTA co-president Pat Lewis said she has no
personal objection to the pledge being recited in school, but she
wants the school to take into consideration the feelings of those
parents who might. Lewis said 25 percent of the student body were
non-white students, some of whom might not be receptive to reciting
the pledge.

"That's a quarter of our students who come from varied backgrounds,
and we have to be tolerant," Lewis said.

[Ed.: In the wake of the terrorist attacks, many parents and
students had been gathering informally on the school steps to recite
the pledge.]